Like Mariah Carey, others have shared bipolar diagnoses

By Peter SblendorioNew York Daily News

Monday

Apr 16, 2018 at 4:00 AM

Mariah Carey is not alone.

The pop star is only the latest public figure to open up about battling bipolar disorder, a mental-health condition typically characterized by drastic mood swings that include stretches of mania and depression.

For Carey, 48, the diagnosis of bipolar II disorder came in 2001, but it remained a secret until this week. By coming forward, she said, she hopes to help eliminate the stigma surrounding mental illness.

“I was working and working and working. ... I was irritable and in constant fear of letting people down. It turns out that I was experiencing a form of mania. Eventually, I would just hit a wall,” Carey told People in a story published Wednesday. “I guess my depressive episodes were characterized by having very low energy. I would feel so lonely and sad — even guilty that I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing for my career."

Between November 2016 and November 2017, about 2.8 percent of adults in the United States suffered from bipolar disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Here are other celebrities who have shed a light on living with the illness:

• Demi Lovato

Lovato has made a point of drawing attention to mental illness since her diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 2011.

The singer is offering therapy sessions to fans ahead of the concerts on her latest tour, and she said on “Ellen” last year that that she is able to “live well” with bipolar disorder.

“I think that that’s the goal for everyone with a mental illness,” she told host Ellen DeGeneres in February 2017. “The reality is, one in five Americans has a mental-health condition. So as long as they get the right treatment team in place and the right treatment plan, they can live well with it.”

• Scott Stapp

The veteran Creed frontman learned of his bipolar disorder after a highly publicized breakdown in 2014, according to People.

But he traces his symptoms all the way back to 1998, and he turned to self-medicating in an effort to get through it.

“It’s hard to understand, in my opinion, a disease that you can’t see physically,” Stapp told Rolling Stone. “There’s no cast. There’s no wheelchair. But it is debilitating. It can destroy your life because it’s hard to understand. I spent a lot of time in dark depressions, and that can be misunderstood by your friends and people around you. I definitely suffered the consequences that most people battling a mental illness suffer. You lose relationships, careers. Unfortunately, a lot lose their lives.”

• Catherine Zeta-Jones

The actress, whose bipolar II disorder was diagnosed in 2011, opened up about the condition that year to People after she was hospitalized.

“If my revelation of having bipolar II has encouraged one person to seek help, then it is worth it,” she said at the time. “There is no need to suffer silently, and there is no shame in seeking help.”

The following year, she said on “Good Morning America” that she hadn't wanted her condition to be made public and didn't want to be made a poster child for the illness.

“Everyone has things going on, and we deal with them the best we can,” she said on the ABC morning show. “We can’t jump from the rooftops shouting: ‘I have this, look at me! Victim!’ No. We all have issues in life, and I’m really happy that I have great friends, great support.”

• Carrie Fisher

The iconic “Star Wars” actress consistently discussed her experiences with bipolar disorder, diagnosed when she was 24 after she'd already made a name for herself in the film industry.

Fisher, who died in December 2016, said she rejected her diagnosis for five years — until she became sober and realized that something was still affecting the way she felt.

“We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges,” Fisher wrote in an advice column for The Guardian weeks before her death in response to a fan who also had bipolar disorder.

“Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic — not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival."

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